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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209260">Coming Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aj_linguistik/pseuds/aj_linguistik'>aj_linguistik</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>October Prompt Challenge [26]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sword Art Online (Anime &amp; Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AKA ep 24 didn't happen like that, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, October Prompt Challenge, One Shot, Zuberg and S30 Are Different People, group hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:48:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27209260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aj_linguistik/pseuds/aj_linguistik</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A long trip from Centoria to Rulid brings Eugeo and Kirito home, but they're not alone. They've done exactly as they promised. This was the mission they set out to accomplish. And this time-they succeeded.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eugeo &amp; Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito &amp; Alice Zuberg | Alice Synthesis Thirty</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>October Prompt Challenge [26]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949194</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Coming Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterbiKirito/gifts">disasterbiKirito</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A/N: For day 26 the prompt was group hug, so it was perhaps a little difficult to brainstorm a prompt. Kudos to babe for pulling out this one. Consider it a fix-it of Alicization ep 24. I also spent more time that necessary because I had this finished at 500 words then went..."but my personal goal is 2,000 words a day!" and added to it. I hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            “Now that you have fulfilled your promise to me, Kirito, please, restore the memories of your childhood friend.”</p><p>            Those were the words that Alice Synthesis Thirty, an Integrity Knight synthesized from the body and mind of Alice Zuberg, said to me after she laid her eyes on the village of Rulid. Her golden hair whipped around behind her gently in the wind. She turned her back on Rulid, likely wanting to separate herself from the pain of seeing her home as she allowed herself to be replaced with her body’s former owner. She was strong; she didn’t want to allow the temptation of running into the village keep her from keeping her end of the deal. She placed her right fist over her chest and nodded . She was ready.</p><p>            A ping of guilt and confusion filled up my chest. I felt sorry to let her go; in her own right, she was a separate soul from Alice Zuberg that deserved to live on no matter what. But Alice had come to an agreement that only she was allowed to make—she would allow Alice Zuberg’s memories to be restored in her, only if we allowed her to see Rulid with her own eyes before those memories were restored. Now that she had seen Rulid, she felt satisfied enough to end her journey as the Osmanthus Knight here, right at the border of the village before she entered it.</p><p>            The road back to Rulid was a long one, but to spare the feelings of her noble steed, Amayori, Alice insisted that the group journey on foot. She likely wanted to see the world she’d been charged with protecting with her own two eyes. She’d told us that the Integrity Knights were forbidden from interacting with normal citizens unless they were specifically ordered to go and deal with sinners. Thus, they only saw the people who would eventually become other Integrity Knights or the clergy who lived in the church. This one rule meant that she’d never seen the Human Empire except for in brief glimpses. Her first and only mission to the human realm had been to apprehend myself and Eugeo when we’d been arrested at the Swordcraft Academy.</p><p>            How much of anything had she seen? It wasn’t a question I ever felt was necessary to ask. She might take offense to it, after all. I supposed that as a younger knight, she hadn’t left the safety of the Central Cathedral except for on missions to the Dark Territory. For years, all she’d done was train to fight behind those impenetrable walls or head out beyond the Human Empire to fight the forces of darkness. She’d had no true contact with the people of this word, as she’d mentioned. In that sense, I felt rather sorry for her. While she’d had companions among the knights, she’d never gotten to have a day off to just go and be human herself.</p><p>            This led her to have these desires now; she wanted to go and be human. She wanted to eat things that normal humans ate, she wanted to see the same sights as the average citizen, and she wanted to talk to people as herself. I could understand these desires. That was what it meant to be human. When she’d learned that she was human herself, she’d immediately longed for the things which seemed so mundane to me or Eugeo. We’d shared a careful glance and a chuckled before we turned and told her that we’d be happy to walk back to Rulid so long as it meant that she fulfilled her final wish.</p><p>            The road seemed twice as long as when we’d taken it the first time, but we didn’t complain. It was evident that Eugeo wanted to hurry back to Rulid and see his beloved Alice Zuberg, but as we watched Alice the knight wander through the human world, I think his impatience subsided a bit. He was beginning to understand why I felt such confliction in my heart. Alice Zuberg and Alice Synthesis Thirty were two different people—and both deserved to live happy lives. But as there was only one body, both could not exist together. Alice herself had made the decision, so we were at her mercy here. If she took it back after wandering around Norlangarth, we would have to deal with the tension between myself and Eugeo at the end of the road.</p><p>            Yet not once did she indicate that she wanted anything beyond this short trip. As she spoke with the citizens of the world, who revered her as an Integrity Knight, there was a joy in her eyes that was also tinged with acceptance. She knew that after she met all of these people and went all of these places, she would be gone. This, to her, was a final parting gift from us to her: the chance to see the world that she’d helped to save in the battle against the Pontifex of the Axiom Church. Her care and love for the humans of this world shone through her actions.</p><p>            I thought back on the other Integrity Knights back in the Central Cathedral, and the ones who were out patrolling the world, unaware of the overthrown order of knights and deceased Pontifex. Would they, too, desire to have their memories reinstated? I figured the answer might vary. For nights as old as Bercouli and Fanatio, it was likely that their memories were of someone long-since dead. It would only be painful for them to remember what had been lost. There was also the fact that regaining these memories would cause the person the knight was now to vanish. It didn’t seem like such a fair tradeoff, but it was the only way it could happen. The knights might be sad to lose themselves, even if that meant giving back their bodies to the person who previously inhabited them.</p><p>            Even now, I could see a tinge of melancholy in her deep blue eyes. For weeks as we’d traveled, she’d been working herself up towards this very moment. She knew that Alice Synthesis Thirty could go no further. It was time for her original soul to return to its proper place. I felt guilty for even caving to such an agreement as this, but I was at least happy that she’d gotten to see what she’d wanted to before this time came. With that in mind, I turned to my partner and best friend and nodded my head.</p><p>            “Eugeo.”</p><p>            He gave me a firm nod back. His eyes were serious and focused. He took out the memory fragment that Administrator had taken from Alice several years ago and held it out in front of him. It rested in the palm of his hands, a beautiful, but morbid, visual representation of human memory. This memory fragment, which looked much like a long, cylindrical crystal, contained the memories that separated the two women from one another. These were the key memories that defined her soul as Alice Zuberg and not a puppet of the church. Alice smiled and nodded at Eugeo, indicating that she was ready whenever he was.</p><p>            He started to recite the formal art to restore the fragment, just as Cardinal had instructed. It was rather lengthy, but after the battles in the Central Cathedral, his sacred arts were good enough that he’d be able to pull off such a complicated art. I felt my chest start to get heavy as the crystal floated out of his hand and lined up with the center of Alice’s forehead. It resembled the insertion of a Piety Module, he would later tell me. The crystal’s pointed tip connected with her forehead and began to sink into it, causing the two units to fuse back into one.</p><p>            Alice Synthesis Thirty locked eyes with me just before she was gone forever. Those eyes were smiling and thanking me for this moment. They weren’t filled with any tears or regret. As much as my chest was filled with confliction, her eyes told me that she felt no such thing in her own heart. This was truly what she wanted to do. She was ending her journey here with pride and returning what she’d taken. I could almost hear her thanks, even though her lips did not move once. I gave her a solemn nod back as her eyes closed. When they opened again, they seemed more confused than anything.</p><p>            Alice looked down at herself and the armor she was wearing. It had been a few years since she’d assumed her Integrity Knight form, so it stood to reason that she’d grown a bit. She turned her hands over a few times, her mouth agape as she realized she was back in her proper body. Those hands then dropped down to touch her armor and her clothing, inspecting it as one might do in a fairy tale where their clothes magically transformed. Finally, her gaze lifted, and she looked between Eugeo and I, her eyes starting to brim with tears as she looked at us. We both smiled.</p><p>            “Eugeo? Kirito?” she said, her voice wavering.</p><p>            Eugeo nodded. There was a warm, joyful look in his eyes that had now replaced one of painful longing that he’d held inside of himself for years. At last, he’d achieved the goal that his heart had set out to reach. He’d gone to Centoria, he’d trained to be a knight, and by his own power, he’d helped to end the life of the Pontifex and brought Alice home to Rulid. It was a desire that had burned in his chest since his childhood, and now, I could see that desire being extinguished by the overwhelming emotion that understood his success. He took a cautious step forward and spoke, his voice wavering just as much as hers was</p><p>            “You’re home, Alice,” Eugeo said. “We’re all home.”</p><p>            She covered her mouth with her hands as tears started to stream down her cheeks. I understood from seeing her memories briefly back in the Central Cathedral that I’d grown up alongside Alice and Eugeo. She was as excited to see me as she was Eugeo. Even if our memories had been tampered with, Alice’s had not. She remembered us both and had shared that past with us. She finally dropped her hands and thrust her arms forward to pull us both into a tight embrace. Laughing, we wrapped our arms around her and hugged her back. Her embrace was warm and strong.</p><p>            “Welcome home, Alice,” I said.</p><p>            From her place between us, she let out a sob. How long had she waited at the top of the Central Cathedral for us? We didn’t know the exact day or time, but it was long enough that the space between us had grown far too wide. The crying woman on our shoulders had patiently awaited rescue, and now, her patience was being rewarded. She was back in her home village, she was restored to her human body, and she was embracing the two friends she loved most in the world. Her arms clung to us even tighter, as if she might lose us again if she let go.</p><p>            “I…I thought I’d never see you again!” she cried, hiccupping between her sobs. “When that awful man told me he’d never let me go home, I just…I just…”</p><p>            Eugeo and I shared a glance and another nod. We both rubbed her back gently.</p><p>            “He was wrong then, wasn’t he?” I said, letting out a small chuckle. “He had to let you come home with us. There was no telling us no.”</p><p>            Eugeo laughed and shook his head. I could tell that he was already done with my nonsense, and we’d only been back in Rulid for a max of maybe fifteen minutes.</p><p>            “That’s right,” he said. “We weren’t leaving that place without you. We went all that way just to find you. Coming home without you was never a part of the plan.”</p><p>            Alice gently pulled herself away from us and wiped the tears off of her face.</p><p>            “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you both.”</p><p>            We both reached out a hand to Alice. She came between us and took our hands in hers. We smiled at one another, feeling the warmth of being reunited at last. In my heart, I thanked the Integrity Knight who’d given her soul up to return Alice to us. I squeezed Alice’s right hand and sighed.</p><p>            “So, are you ready to see Selka again?” I asked.</p><p>            Alice nodded.</p><p>            “More than you could possibly know,” she said.</p><p>            I just laughed. She had no idea. I understood exactly what it meant to be separated from one’s family for too long, unable to return. And that is exactly why I walked into Rulid, hand-in-hand with her, overjoyed to see her reunite with her family once more.</p>
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